You'll never have breakthrough ideas if you're living life entirely through a screen. Which is why Rick Barrack, chief creative officer at branding firm CBX, recently dumped 10 pounds of sand on a conference room floor.

Here at Co.Design, we pride ourselves on being a house of many mansions. To that end, we’ve spent the past several months sharing the perspectives of some of the finest experts working in design, from Bruce Nussbaum on the dangers of design imperialism to Gadi Amit on what’s wrong with American design schools (hint: everything). We might not agree with all the opinions, but we’re totally convinced that the dialogue about design is richer because of them. What follows is a collection of the most popular — and occasionally controversial — columns of 2010.